


Sweet freedom whispered in my ear

by jperalta



Series: The Depressed Jake Peralta Universe [2]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Depression, F/M, Fainting, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Panic Attacks, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:46:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23330368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jperalta/pseuds/jperalta
Summary: Another pang of nausea, another feeling of electricity through his head, then he realized he was silently crying. Idiot, he thought, curling further into himself. He knew he had to eat, knew he had to do something, but it all seemed so impossible.Jake experiences a depression relapse. Amy does the best she can. Please always let me know if there are any additional tags that should be added. Follow up work to "We've All Gone Crazy Lately"
Relationships: Jake Peralta & Amy Santiago
Series: The Depressed Jake Peralta Universe [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1677742
Comments: 17
Kudos: 119





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Detailed thoughts of self-harming, description of fictional suicide in a TV show that Jake and Amy are watching. Please let me know if there are any additional tags that should be added.

It had been a weird day since he woke up, and Jake wasn’t sure why. He hadn’t slept well and when he woke up it was several hours before the alarm went off and he had just laid there, staring up at the ceiling that he couldn’t see in the darkness. Slowly the sun had risen and the shadows diminished, then the alarm had gone off and when Amy had turned to him and asked how he had slept, he had put on a small smile and said “great, of course, I was next to you.”

When he had made his coffee at the precinct, he had spilled a little on his hand. It wasn’t a big deal but he had gotten so upset with himself and had felt like he was about to cry. He told himself that it was stupid to be upset over little things like that, and he had washed his hands then continued to make his coffee.

And it was little things like that all day long - a typo in an email he had sent previously, stumbling over his words too frequently when talking to anyone, finding himself getting increasingly angry whenever anyone spoke too long on a topic he didn’t care about. He didn’t want to feel this upset, yet he couldn’t seem to turn it off. Every little thing just kept making it worse.

When he was finally home with Amy, making spaghetti for dinner, he thought he could finally relax. She had put on some music while they were cooking and he felt the weight of the day begin to disappear. It must have just been a weird day. Still, he wished he knew why, and he dreaded that it would continue tomorrow, and the next day, and for the next few weeks until before he knew it, he was having another episode - feeling hopeless and horrible. But he tried to push that idea out of his head. He had tried to enjoy watching Amy dance to the song, moving her shoulders back and forth as she mouthed along to the lyrics she didn’t entirely know. The song ended and she caught him looking at her. _I love you_ , she mouthed with a smile. He had been overwhelmed with kindness and love and tried as hard as he could to stop himself from crying, although of course she wouldn’t have minded. But something about the sadness within him that day had been so strange and seemingly out of nowhere that he almost felt embarrassed by it.

Now they were sitting down at the couch, their plates on the coffee table in front of them, and some procedural something or other show was on the TV. Jake didn’t really watch it, but Amy was several seasons in, so he watched it with her sometimes. He was a few forkfuls into his pasta when a body flashed on the screen. It was some female character that had died by apparent suicide. The food started to taste like nothing. He looked over at Amy with wide eyes and she was texting with one hand, shoving food into her mouth with the other. She hadn’t seen. Jake tried to suppress again whatever it was he was feeling, and tried not to look at the screen, but he couldn’t help it. It was like a crazy car accident where the person inside the car was himself. He looked up again and the show was showing close-up shots of the person’s long and jagged cuts on her forearms, the bathtub filled with crimson water. The air started to leak out of Jake’s lungs and he dropped his fork onto the plate, clutching his stomach as he winced.

The clanging sound made Amy look over at him. “Jake?” She asked gently, putting her phone onto the table and pushing her hair behind her ears. She reached out to touch his arm but he pulled away. When he looked back to the TV, the girl was still on the screen, and they showed the rest of the scars over her arms and legs. He felt like he was going to vomit. Amy followed his gaze to the television, and when she saw what was on it, all she could say was “shit” as she frantically reached for the remote and turned off the program.

But by that time Jake was running into the bathroom, locking the door behind himself. He gripped the edges of the sink and tried desperately to catch his breath, but whenever he would breath in he felt like the oxygen wasn’t enough, that there would never be enough oxygen in him again. He let cries out in between his breaths and slammed his fist hard on the counter. His hand ached a lot and he tried to focus on it, but it wasn’t enough. He could see the show in his mind now, could see the red scars trailing up and down the girl’s thigh, and then he could feel it on himself. He could feel the sensation of a blade cutting into his arm, drawing pink lines that would provide some sort of release in the moment. He rolled up his sleeves, turned on the sink and splashed water on his face, hoping it would calm him down, but it didn’t work. And now he could see the scars on his own arms, could feel them basically begging to be split open again. It had been months since the last time, and he had thought it was over. But this day and that show had really started him on a spiral.

“Jake? Please, open up,” Amy yelled while pounding her fist on the door. 

But her voice was almost like static. It faded into the background and all he could hear was the screaming inside his own head mixed with the voices on that goddamn show. He flung the bathroom cabinet open and stared at a razor, the one he had used before that had only been touched in recent months when he needed to shave. He reached his shaking hand up to it and squeezed the handle in his palm. He could see visions of himself doing it and he wanted to scream. It all just felt so horrible all of the sudden. 

“Jake, please,” Amy pleaded. He could tell she was crying now too and he felt even worse. “I’m so sorry,” she said, as if anything had ever been her fault. “Please.” 

The banging stopped and he could hear her crying now. And he knew he had the power to stop it - he could put the razor down right now, open the door, and everything could be okay. But the thought of not doing what he so badly wanted to do now felt terrifying, and he let out another cry. “I’m so scared,” he half-whispered. 

“All you have to do right now is unlock the door,” she stated. “That’s all.” 

He tried to focus on her words, and he put the razor onto the counter and reached towards the doorknob. He saw visions of himself bleeding again and felt haunted by it, felt like he couldn’t escape it anymore, and that by unlocking this door he would be denying himself what he really wanted, what he really deserved. “I can’t,” he let out with a shaky breath. “I can’t…”

“Of course you can.” His hands were shaking still as he continued to struggle to breath, listening to her. “Don’t… don’t you want me in there with you? Can’t I help at all?” 

He wasn’t sure if she was trying to make him feel guilty, in fact he was sure she wasn’t, but he couldn’t help but to feel that way. But if guilt would save him right now, then he should be grateful for it. He took in a breath and without thinking of it too much, he unlocked the door. As soon as the click sounded his heart rate increased even more and the edges of his vision were fading. He could see Amy enter the room, could feel her arms around him as he lost his footing and the two of them fell to the ground together, leaning against the tub once they hit the tile. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” Amy said softly, and he could feel her eyes and fingers looking him over to see if he had hurt himself, which he hadn’t. “I’m so sorry,” Amy said again. “I should have checked or… something. God, they really need to give warnings for that kind of stuff.”

Jake almost wanted to laugh, and he nestled into her arms more. “No, I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what happened. Today was so… strange, and that just… I don’t know - it really… well, it hurt, I guess.”

She held him tighter and placed her lips on his head briefly. “It’s okay,” she said again. “Sometimes we have weird days. Sometimes stuff triggers us. It’s okay. It doesn’t mean you’re back to square one.”

When she said this, he cried again, but this time because he knew she was right, and he was so grateful to have someone like her in his life. “It’s okay,” he repeated to himself as he started to come out of his haze. “Thank you.”

She squeezed him again. “I love you, you know.”

He smiled as he felt her arms around his waist. “I know.” He held her back. “I love you, too.”

She repositioned herself so she could see his face again. “Do you think you can eat more dinner?” 

His stomach had stopped twisting over itself, and the panic started subsiding. He thought of the spaghetti, and the thought didn’t fill him with nausea. “Yeah,” he pulled himself off the floor a bit. “Yes, I think so.”

She rubbed his arm softly with her hand, her fingers grazing across his scars that continued to fade every day. “We can watch something light. One of those animated shows. Like Kevin Universe, or something.”

Jake let out a real laugh and wiped the tears from his eyes. “It’s Steven Universe.”

Amy’s cheeks turned a light shade of pink. “Whatever. They’re both 90s boy names with Vs.”

He chuckled again. He couldn’t disagree with her. "Yeah, true. That would be great."

She got up to her feet and pulled him up too, then she held him in front of her as she looked into his eyes again. “Be nice to yourself,” she said.

He tried not to cry again, but this time it was different, a lighter feeling. He was loved and he needed to remember that. “Okay.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first signs of depression start to show up again.

It was getting bad again. Jake could feel it building inside of himself. He could feel the sadness starting to seep into every aspect of his life. People at work started to ask if he was okay, and every time he lied and said he was fine, he could feel that sadness claw at him a bit more. He had started to feel exhausted all of the time again, and there was a time a couple of days ago when Amy ran out to the store after dinner, and Jake threw up everything he had eaten. When she had come home, she asked why he was pale, and he said he thought he might be coming down with something.

The weekend happened, and Jake let himself lie around most of the time, keeping up with the lie that he was sick. It wasn’t entirely a lie, because he was sick, but not the kind of sick he was letting Amy believe. 

When Monday rolled around again, the time came for Jake to get out of bed, but he couldn’t make himself do it. Amy got up and did her usual routine, poking Jake every so often and telling him he had to get up, that he’d be late. He kept saying he was working on it, that he’d get there, but the time came where Amy had to leave, and Jake had harly just begun to sit up.

“Are you still feeling sick?” She asked tenderly.

He swallowed and couldn’t bring himself to look at her. “Yeah, I guess,” he whispered in a drained voice. “You go ahead - I’ll meet you there.”

Amy rubbed his back. “You can stay home, you know. You don’t have to torture yourself.”

Jake winced. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’ll vouch for you.” She pushed his chest gently and he slid back into the sheets. “Maybe call the doctor.”

He knew she was talking to him, but he was staring at the wall, unfocused, not really taking anything in anymore. He felt empty and fuzzy, like someone had started to power his brain down. It had been like this all weekend but now it was really starting to affect him. He didn’t even realize that he had started to cry until Amy brushed his cheeks with her fingers. 

“Jake,” she said, holding his face towards hers in her hands. 

Jake did his best to stop crying as he sniffled and wiped his face. “I’m okay, I just…” He took in a deep breath but didn’t feel like he got enough oxygen into his body. His face scrunched up as he started crying again. “I just really don’t feel good.”

Amy was running her fingers over his bare chest slowly and gently. It was something that had relaxed him many times before, and he tried to focus on the light sensation, but there was only so much she could do to keep his mind from hurting. With her other hand, she held his. In a low and quiet face she said, “if it’s getting bad again, you need to tell me.”

He cursed himself in his head. What he thought he was doing okay with hiding, she already knew. “What gave me away?”

Amy squeezed his hand in her own. “When you have a cold, you still laugh at the TV. I haven’t heard you laugh in a few days.”

He let a melancholy smile surface his lips. “I can’t get anything past you.” He reached up to rub her arm but his body felt like static electricity was going through it. He collapsed back into the bed.

“I don’t understand why you wanted to,” she said, lying down next to him in her full uniform, leaning on her side so she could still run her fingers on his chest.

Jake looked into her eyes and saw her kindness and the concern, and he felt all the horrible emotions swimming around inside of him. Amy moved her hand up to his cheek and he leaned into it, cherishing how soft and warm she was. “I’m not really sure,” he said in nearly a whisper. “Maybe because I felt like talking about it would make it final, or concrete. Maybe I just feel ashamed that it’s happening again, but also…” He unknowingly shrunk into himself. “I didn’t want to break your heart.” When he said that, he closed his eyes, not wanting to see the tears that began to fall from hers.

“Oh, Jake,” Amy said, her voice breaking. “It’s not you. You can’t control it.” She was running her hands through his hair now, moving her body closer to his. “Have you, um, have you thought about hurting yourself again?”

The scars on his arms ached and seemed to glow between them. The truth was that yes, he had been thinking about it - both in the temporary and, well, more permanent ways. Every time he went to the bathroom, he found himself staring at the razor. Every time he was up high in a building, he had started to wonder if he would die if he jumped out the nearest window. But mostly he had just found himself almost hoping for some sort of accident to happen. He’d walk on the sidewalk and see an image of himself tripping, falling into the street, and the bus running him over. He’d hear planes overhead and almost beg of them to fall out of the sky and crush into him. It had become so regular, imagining his own death - a strange sort of comforting, almost pleasant to remember that if things got that bad, he had that option, and he always would.

But he realized the time between her question and the present moment had been too long, and right as she looked like she was about to scream, he mumbled, “no.”

She looked over his face, as if looking for a sign that he was lying. “Are you sure?”

He said nothing, just nodded a bit and turned his head so he was facing the ceiling again. “You should go to work,” he said, trying not to sound cold.

She gripped his hand. “No, I’m going to stay here.”

“Amy, you’re important, you know you have to go in. I’ll be okay, I promise,” he said, offering her his manufactured smile again.

She stood up and looked at him. “Will you call your doctor?”

The thought of dialing a phone number made him queasy, but he nodded his head again.

She walked towards the door and, with her hand on the handle, turned back to look at him and said, “You’re important too, you know.”

As soon as he could hear that she left the apartment, he turned, buried his face in his pillow, and let himself cry as hard as he could.


	3. Chapter 3

Jake was curled up on his bed, one arm dangling off the side, the beginnings of a migraine in his forehead. He had been trying to get the energy to feed himself for hours now. The sun was shining relentlessly bright outside, a high of almost 100 degrees, making it so he was still way too warm despite lying right in front of the air conditioner. He glanced at the time - 8:45pm. Way past dinner time, yet still he hadn’t had anything to eat since the bowl of cereal he had after waking up at noon. He put a hand on his stomach, as if in an attempt to will himself into feeling hungry, but obviously it didn’t work. He never seemed to be hungry anymore. A tingling sensation traveled through his head, another spike of nausea worked its way through his chest. The bitter sensation flooded his mouth and he swallowed it down hard, forever trying to push this feeling away. He wondered if tonight would be like last night, where he took enough medication to fall asleep instantly so he wouldn’t have to feed himself again.

The forecast on his phone told him the weather was supposed to go on like this for at least another week. He squeezed the phone tightly in his hand, wondering if he’d break it at all if he squeezed hard enough. But his fingers started to ache so he stopped and opened the messages app. Every name he saw, he wanted to say something to them, let them know that he was feeling so absolutely miserable. He typed out several messages to several people:  _ I feel so stuck. Why can’t I eat? Do I need to eat dinner? I wish I wasn’t alone. I feel like I’m drowning. Please help me. Please help. You have to help me, please. _

But he didn’t send anything to anyone. He hated feeling like a burden, hated saying how he felt then having it be answered with “you’re worrying me.” And when someone said that, was honest right back to him, it hurt like he never would have imagined. For him to attempt to put how horrible he felt into words, only to have it answered with a friend saying they were worried… he knew they meant well. He knew it was their way of expressing concern and care, but all it made him feel was guilty and more stuck, wanting to say how he was feeling but also trying so hard to keep from ruining other people’s days. 

Another pang of nausea, another feeling of electricity through his head, then he realized he was silently crying. Idiot, he thought, curling further into himself. He knew he had to eat, knew he had to do something, but it all seemed so impossible. 

The beat of his heart seemed to echo through his room, and he could swear he could feel it in his forehead. Then the nausea pumped through again, and it was so strong he forced himself into an upright position. But on his way up the room started to blur, the light started to fade. His head was pounding now, pounding harder than it had in a long while. The passage in his throat was growing smaller, he could feel it, he knew it. He felt like he had to do something, make a sound or something, so he forced out a sob. 

And when he let the sound out, everything else started to unravel. He kept pushing the sobs out until he no longer had control of the noise, of his body, of anything at all. His chest was tightening even more, and he couldn’t breathe. The nausea was stronger than ever and he wrestled with himself over whether or not he should let himself throw up. He had been trying to stop vomiting so much, especially since he wasn’t eating much to begin with, but in the moment it never felt like a choice. He reached for his phone, trying to open a game or something to distract himself, but between his crying and his vision blurring he could hardly see, let alone steady his fingers enough to press any button with accuracy. 

He opened a message to Amy instead. She’d been away for a few days visiting family, and Jake had promised -  _ promised _ \- that he’d be okay without her. “I’m just sad, I’m not dying,” he had said half-jokingly, trying to lighten the mood. And even though he knew she didn’t believe him, she had held his hand between her own, pressed her lips to it, then gotten into a cab. He wondered how much of him had secretly wanted her to leave, wanted to just be able to wallow entirely in his own misery without someone there to make sure he was taking care of himself. It must have been a stronger part than he realized because as soon as she was gone, he turned the lights in the bedroom off and curled up on top of the bed, a position he had hardly moved out of in days. “Ames, I promise, I’ll be okay.” He had lied - lied through his teeth like a fucking asshole. So as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t bring himself to call her, or text her, and admit he had lied, that he wasn’t okay. He closed out of the app again feeling twice as helpless and hopeless as he had ten minutes ago. 

He squeezed his eyes shut, as if having them closed would somehow prevent the tears from pouring out, and therefore stop him from crying. But it didn’t work like that and his chest grew somehow even tighter as he got pushed further into the worst panic attack he’d had in months. He pressed his body against the bed again, curled tighter into himself and held his head underneath his arms. “Stop crying,” he started to talk to himself. “Jake Peralta, you goddamn idiot, stop fucking crying.” Voices outside reminded him that somewhere else people were having a good time, a great summer. He pulled a blanket over his mouth and screamed into it, then kept sobbing. He had joked that he wasn’t dying - but that had been a lie too

There was the overwhelming feeling that he was stuck in so many ways. His head was throbbing and he couldn’t make it go away. He was far too warm and even lying right in front of the AC did nothing, and he felt aggravated on top of everything as he wiped the beads of sweat off his forehead and felt drops falling down his sides. He was disgusting, a loser, horrible, a liar, stupid, and everything else. He hurled insults at himself, telling himself he deserved it, “you can’t even keep it together for a few days, you needy piece of  _ shit _ .”

Stuck in his room, stuck in his mind, stuck in this ridiculous heat. There was no end.  _ Fuck _ . 

He tried to hold on to something in his mind - Amy, his favorite shows, Amy, his job he loved and missed, Amy, Amy, Amy - but it wasn’t enough. Everything kept spinning. His head kept spinning. The idea of how puking came back to him. “You don’t have to, you just want to, fucking… stop…” But he lost the battle and threw himself across the hall into the bathroom, the bile coming out of his mouth before his knees hit the ground. Tears kept pouring down, harder with every second it seemed. He wiped his mouth and collapsed on the ground, feeling exactly the same as before - worthless - as he pulled himself back into his room and on his bed.

He was desperately trying to think of a way out. He could try standing in the cold shower, but it wouldn’t get rid of his headache. Maybe all of this was because he hadn’t eaten - maybe he did it to himself, and he should just go into the kitchen to make something. But the idea of leaving his room and going into the even  _ hotter _ kitchen just didn’t seem possible. He wasn’t sure if he would ever be able to explain how absolutely stuck he felt - both emotionally and somehow physically too. Like he was tied to his bedroom and the bathroom across the hall, like if he left he’d somehow cease to exist. But maybe that was what he wanted.  _ Shit _ . Now that the thought was in his head, it was always so hard to get it out.

His head kept on reeling as he frantically thought of anything he could do to stop all this as soon as possible. He thought of the razors in the bathroom, but it seemed too painful, like way too much work right now. He didn’t want Amy to come home and find the mess he had left, although he supposed whatever way he did that’s still what would happen, so he tried to push the idea away, but it was like an addiction. Instead he tried to think of possibly breaking out a pair of scissors and dragging them across the skin around his ankle, but it didn’t feel like enough.

His phone buzzed and he frantically reached for it, hoping that someone somehow sensed what was going on and reached out. But it was nothing - an email with a coupon or some bullshit. He opened Amy’s and his conversation again. The last text was a “miss you!” from her a few hours ago, and he hadn’t responded, maybe to fuel his own self-hatred even further. With his fingers still shaking, he typed out: “I’m having an absolutely horrible panic attack and I’m shaking so badly and I want to talk to you but I can’t.” He stared at it a few moments before deleting it and locking his phone without sending anything to anyone. God, he couldn’t believe he was still crying this hard. 

He remembered his therapist - Dr. Dorothy Schwartz (“please, call me Dot”) - tried to hear her words in his head. What would she say if she was there right now? What would she say to him the next time he saw her? Then he remembered - “why didn’t you reach out to me?” He unlocked his phone again, scrolled to her name in the contact list and opened their conversation - all it was was a series of “I’m running 5 minutes late” from both of them, back and forth, over the course of the past several months. He tapped and the keyboard appeared: “would you be able to chat real quick?” Then without thinking for more than a second he pressed send, then looked back. It sounded so casual, like a text to Amy inquiring about what they should have for dinner. “Chat real quick” - as if Jake was spiraling out of his mind, thinking of killing himself for the first time in a while, wanting to punch himself just to see if he could snap himself out of it. 

Some time passed and he tried to think of what else Dot would tell him to do, and he remembered his Xanax. Funny, how the thing he should’ve thought of twenty minutes ago when all this started was only coming to him now. But it was better than nothing, better than never. 

He reached for the bottle on the nightstand and dumped it all into his hand. He thought about how he could take it all, mixed with whatever else was in their apartment, and wondered if it would be enough. Then he remembered - he was supposed to be taking care of himself, not planning his death. “Shit,” he whispered out through tears and whimpers. “Just one, come on.” He reached into his palm and the urge to dump them all down his throat was so strong, he swore he almost did it. He winced, slapped himself in the face with his free hand. It stung, and he knew he shouldn’t have, but it just made sense. The pills shook in his palm. “Jake, think of Amy.” 

The thought came into his mind of Amy coming home in a few days and finding Jake in their bed, motionless, discolored, dead. He played out her reaction in his mind, just to torture himself - how upset she’d be, how much she’d cry, if she’d try to shake him back to life. Then he felt horrible for even considering it. So he reached for two pills, something his prescribing doctor had said he could do if he ever felt as bad as he did right now, and popped them into his mouth then took the last sip of water out of his glass. 

He fell back into the pillows on the bed, looked at his phone and saw no text or call back from Dot yet. But it had only been fifteen minutes since he had texted, and he knew she would obviously return his text soon. He opened his phone back up, opened 2048 and started swiping around mindlessly. Over the next few minutes he felt his heart rate slowing. When the feeling of hopelessness spiked up again, he’d remind himself he had taken twice his normal dose of Xanax, that he’d probably, hopefully, be asleep within an hour or so. He’d eat first, maybe just another bowl of cereal, but it would be something. He thought of all the things he had wanted to tell someone not too long ago and told himself he’d talk to Dot soon. He kept playing the game on his phone, watching the sun set out of the corner of his eye. The room always cooled off a lot in the night. He positioned himself so a burst of cold air hit him in the face again, as he tried to focus all of his attention on the game. After a few minutes, a text came in. It was Dot: “Of course, call me when you’re free.”


End file.
